Le Floreal

If you happen to find yourself looking for a good spot to eat between the 11th and the 19th, Le Floreal is most certainly an option. Although it's actually located in the 10th (which would make some people say you kind of missed your target), they will serve you a very decent meal, not extravagant, but by the book. The place is large and lively, and the cocktails served in the bar might just as well also be the main reason for a visit. Informal and yet with classical style at the small tables in the restaurant section. The menu is basic and classical, but things are well prepared. Also the wines are good value for your money.

www.lefloreal.fr

Au Comptoir de Brice

Inside one of the covered market places of the 10th district in Paris, you'll find a crowded, long, wooden counter, covering up an open kitchen. Good things are happening here. The place is rather unusual, a French restaurant serving excellent food from 12 to 18 all week days - that is, no semi-fascistoid time constraints implemented with provoking rigor, with lunch being served only between 12.30 and 13.15 or something similar... well, anyway. Although considerably more sophisticated than a mere market place counter, the place has the local ambiance, the high standards of quality, and the charming feel-good cosiness that just makes you want to stick around for yet another round of excellent food. Although the menu is limited, it's good - from the tasty and juicy cheese burgers to the delicate and well cooked veal liver. A few, but well selected, good wines by the glass; and a small crowd of warm staff, running around, smiling, despite even the more busy weekend buzz. A perfect Saturday afternoon hideout.

www.aucomptoirdebrice.com

Le Severo

Le Severo is located in one of the more charming corners around the generally quite uninteresting Tour de Montparnasse area. The place is small and the tables close. Le patron is a little bit everywhere, and as a former butcher, he feels absolutely free to tell his guests to keep their voices down if their jokes are bad, or if he just does not feel they behave as they're supposed to. Very French in the somewhat funny way. Several wines are excellent, although you will also need to pay for them. The major force of this place is definitely the meat. It is just really, really good. 

Racines - Marchand de Vin

Racines - or roots - is an excellent restaurant located in yet another one of Paris' many charming passages. The old wine shop is modestly decorated; empty bottles greet you welcome in the windows and the kitchen is open, practically hidden behind the bar. The guests are couples, business people with a need to charm their clients, or simply wine enthusiastic friends. There is no wine menu as such. The wines for sale are show cased randomly at shelves around the restaurant, which unavoidably forces you interact with the other guests around the small tables. Unless of course, you take the easy short cut, and get some good advice from the open and warm guys running the place. The wines are mostly natural. The kitchen is unpretentious, focused; the food is very well prepared, and the products well selected. Not a place for a comprehensive menu, but the place where the two or three main dishes they serve a good. Comme il faut. A very nice and cosy place.

Coinstot

Coinstot is a crowded and always lively wine bar, located at the end of the charming Passage des Panoramas near the Grands Boulevards. The wines - mostly natural - are excellent and well selected. The choice of producers reflect that natural wines can and should be not only an ideological choice, but also and mainly about finding the good wines. And not necessarily from the more well know appellations. Also the food is well selected, from the oysters, the charcuterie plates to the well treated meat. It's all good. The prices are most certainly reasonable; this is a place where you can easily spend a good evening accompanied by a soul full kitchen. 

www.coinstot-vino.com

Marche Bastille

This is one of the bigger markets of Paris. And where Parisians from the eastern part of the city go Sunday morning. Fresh product, lots of fruit and vegetables, but in varying quality so know what you're buying. One very good cheese producer from Normandy, and two good oyster families are traveling every week in the season from Marenne-Oleron at the coast. I do not buy meat here, but several small producers of different stuff, ranging from honey to rillettes are to be found. When wild mushrooms are collected, this is usually also a good place to buy them.

Marche des enfants rouges

An good but small, partly covered market, where the bobos of Paris check each other out and hang out.  An excellent cheese shop, and an equally good butcher is just outside the market at Rue de Bretagne. Inside, there are several small wine bars and very good lunch restaurants. A bit expensive, but generally good quality products. 

In Champagne - Damien Wilmet in Reims

Located near the old market place (will the restoration ever end?) in a beautiful light butcher house, you'll find this elegant and sparkling bar, bistro and wine shop. Well carpentered wooden tables. An appropriate number of Champagnes on the glass. An unpretentious lunch kitchen serves exactly what you need. Everything is here. Just relax, sit down, and let it come to you. And hope that you have not planned any visites de cave within the short future.

Le Dorcia

Is is really named after the American Psycho restaurant, where reservations always required a bit more than usual? It is not clear. The decor is low lit, creamy elegant, as posh as wooden panels get. The kitchen is very classical, the menu is narrow but good, and the food is very well prepared. The servings are inventive, despite the classical point of departure. Good selection of wines. A bit too pricy though, but if not, most definitely a good meal.

www.ledorcia.fr

Point Bulles

At the Marche Saint Germain. An easy, light and delicate Champagne bar welcomes you: Point Bulles. The food is just as light and sparkling as you would expect. The tables outside are of course packed during the summer. Several very nice Champagnes can be found here, somewhat reasonably priced. Small elegant tasting dishes or larger plates to share. Although somewhat mixed and certainly not with the same sense of terroir as in the bottles. The food remains decent, and gain points on the ideas and the servings, rather than the preparation. And you simply just get delighted by sipping bubbles in this elegant part of Paris.

www.pointbulles.com

Le Bistrot du Sud-Ouest a Paris

A cuisine de terroir from the South. A traditional and not very Parisian place. The place to have well served duck and goose in all the ways you can imagine. An easy going restaurant, almost stagnant. With well-made duck...

www.sudestetcie.com

Closerie des Lilas - brasserie

A Boulevard institution. And the place does not seem to oxidate. You feel the vibe from when you enter. From the harmless mice running on the floor in the entrance to the drunk piano player with a craving for Elvis and Calvados. A bar, sharp and to the point. It's all there. And of course, a very decent kitchen, although today perhaps rather overpriced - also in the brasserie.

www.closeriedeslilas.fr

Bistrot Favart

A classical and very correct bistro; simple, based on good products; a so called cuisine du marche. With a more standard Parisian bar in the ground floor, the restaurant is on the first floor with the kitchen. Good wines. Friendly ambiance. Very reasonably priced.

www.bistrotfavart.com

Le Tambour

Le Tambour is one of the few places in the Montorgueil area that is open late. As simple as that.

Aux Deux Amis

This place is a strange mix between a noisy bar and a classy neo-bistrot. For those who prefer things quiet and nicely wrapped in, this might be a bit to much. For the rest of us, the place is excellent for tasting a series of interesting and well prepared dishes. Although the noyeau is French, some twists of Mediterranean kitchen are to be expected. Excellent wines. Very much Oberkamf. 

Frenchie - bar a vin

Frenchie is an excellent wine bar serving bistronomy in a cosy and intriguing ambiance. Located in a small alley, on a side street from Rue des Petits Carreaux and Montorgueil, this place. The tables are small, so if the place is full, you're likely to be placed at the table of other guests. Normally for the better, but if you can find a corner, hold on to it. The food comes in small, well prepared, elegant, tasteful servings, allowing for real dining as well as curious snacking. 

Rostand

After a Saturday stroll in the Jardin Luxembourg, Le Rostand is an obvious choice for the afternoon tarte aux mirabelles or for the almost voluptuous Croque Madame. The place is classically arranged and service is good. Surprisingly cheap. They do also serve both lunch and dinner. Not the place for the afternoon glass of wine, though...

Jaja

JaJa labels themselves as a restaurant of "sympathetic kitchen and wine". Located in the very heart of Marais, the place is most often crowded and lively, full of people. Although the crowd is often rather touristy, some locals also drop by to add to the authenticity. The place is designed to be unpretentiously good, and do deliver on this, somewhat, overall. The wines are good, but too expensive for the food. A small court yard terrace adds to the charm, both summer and winter.

www.jaja-resto.com

La Chasse Gardee

La Chasse Gardee is a Batignolles adventure... a small, funny bar with a warm but kitsch deco, mixing deer hunting with a library cocktail bar. The food is traditional, very decent and well priced. The wines are ok, and you easily forgive them that instead of a wine menu, you just go and have a look at whats stocked in the wine rack. The staff is nice and cool. The ambience is also good, relaxed, although moving somewhat unpredictably. But you should go there, not because of the above, but solely to explore just what might happen, when the dinner is over and the hunting starts...

Des Gars dans la Cuisine

Guys in the kitchen. And for the better. A nice and cosy place in the heart of Marais. A simple and intuitive kitchen with appealing dishes, decently delivered. Rue Vieille du Temple is the like heartbeat of the neighborhood, and the restaurant hits the unpretentious and laid back vibe it intends to. The intentions are all good and the results is not bad. The servants are accommodating and you feel welcome chez les gars.

www.desgarsdanslacuisine.com

Le Refuge des Moines

Le Refuge des Moines is a warm and cosy wine bar with a simple and traditional, yet well-made, French kitchen. The wine menu is broad and reasonably priced. As simple as that.

www.baravinlerefugedesmoines.com

Cafe des Musees

Cafe des Musees is a classical Parisian bistro in the best sense of the word. In Rue de Turenne, the street where you always can find just one more shirt to buy, this place is just in front of the church, well located between Place des Vosges and Rue de Bretagne with Le Marche des Enfants Rouges. The place is simple, but charming with its black and white tiles and the red wooden strips of tree. The waiters are charming and nice, even enough to forgive them a few faux pas along the way... The food is simply good, comme il faut, well prepared and simple, based on good products. And when you can start out with a bottle of brut nature bubbles from Drappier for 40 euros, you are already very well of. Most definitely a good address.

www.cafedesmusees.fr

Bon

In the almost lively Rue de la Pompe, you'll find restaurant Bon. The place is just as pretentious as the name indicates. The decor is light in the first section of the restaurant, while the back holds a more interesting room, tapestried as bookshelves, providing a slight - but needed - dose of library calm and feel good. The servants are just as unaccommodating as you might fear in the 16th. The plates are decent, but rather uninteresting, although they are well arranged. The kitchen is French with repeated touches of South-East Asia. A good stop if you really want to be sure that you have seen all the Starck decorated restaurants in Paris.

www.restaurantbon.fr

Ma Cave Fleury

When you happen to do your afternoon stroll in the area around Rue Saint Denis, this small, cosy and personal Champagne bar is the perfect stop. If you're sitting outside, then keep an eye on your bag. And then relax and enjoy the extraordinary selection of exquisite - mainly organic - bubbles at almost no cost. And top up with a beetroot snack or some foie gras to keep the balance. Although the place is small and a makeshift, it does hold a nerve - but then again, good bubbles just make everything easier.

www.macavefleury.fr

La Societe

La Societe is located as discrete as possible when the address is Place Saint-Germain. The restaurant is first of all highly elegant. An esthetic project, well implemented to the exclusive recruitment of an unusual high number (100%) of beautiful (and handsome for that matter) and well sculptured waiters. From this pleasant fact follows the next obvious fact, so are the customers. In the summer, a terrace is organized, smoothly maintaining a natural distinction between beauty and all the rest of it. The food is also sharp - of course.

www.restaurantlasociete.com

Le Baratin

Le Baratin is an excellent and cosy small neo-bistrot in the 20th district, just above the Parc de Belleville. The focus is on natural wines and well-prepared solid yet elegant, dishes, particularly around entrails. Although particular, the food is sharp and well thought. Very reasonably priced (the cadeau for moving up on the steep hills of Belleville).

Qui Plume la Lune

Qui Plume la Lune is a good restaurant placed between Republique and the Bastille. Genre-wise it tends toward an ambitious neo-bistrot, but could just as well be labelled as gastronomic restaurant. The decor is welcoming, despite or perhaps just because of the very well conducted design. The food is elegant and the servings are delicate and well prepared. The wine list is extensive and good (however, be aware of how it is tempered). The prices are a bit too high considering the location and the level of sophistication in the servings.

www.restaurantquiplumelalune.com

Liza

Liza is a Lebanese restaurant. With a friendly ambiance and a nice remarkable decor, this place is a slightly more upscale and elegant alternative to the local couscous place. The food is served with care and is overall well prepared, although the servings are not highly innovative. A place with a good ambiance.

Barav

Barav - short for "bar à vin" - is a cool wine bar in a perfectly chill neighborhood. Located in the Haut-Marais the bar is the perfect yet unpretentious hang out place, when you just want to share a good bottle of wine with some good friends. Or even a stranger... The concept is simple: A simple bar on a corner, a lot of randomly selected chairs and tables where people can sit. A limited menu. A wine shop of the house next door, open until 22.00, the "cork price" or droit de bouchon is almost ridiculous at 7 euros (but also helps attract a mixed and funny crowd of young locals). This concept allows you to taste a rich variety of very good and well selected wines for little money. Once the wine shop closes next door, a decent selection remains in the bar. Simple dishes are served, and a number of decent servings with cheese or charcuterie. 

Le Comptoir des Petits Champs

A very charming place in the very heart of Paris. Nice ambiance and people are generally good company, despite a high tourist ratio. Although the place is well-priced the food is not overwhelmingly good. Appears a dating restaurant. Very straightforward decent menu, plain and simple.

www.lecomptoirdespetitschamps.fr

La Gare

In the bourgois 16th near La Muette, you find this ancient rail station. The restaurant is in a spacious, very elegant and good looking hall in the lower level. The upper level is a bar, with a well visited terrace, particularly in the summer time. Clientele is well off upper-class Parisians as well as nearby ex-pats. The restaurant is good, stable and the servings are sharp. Classical kitchen. Slightly overpriced - but good-looking women in the bar sometimes balances it.

www.restaurantlagare.com

Dalva

This lively and charming street just behind Rue Montmartre in the Montorgeuil area is almost always worth a visit in the evenings. Dalva is one of the more easy going, chilled places. They serve decent wine and food, but the main issue is another: Who will get the couch? the couch that seems to have lived through a little bit of everything adorn the restaurant and grants the lucky few a particular seating from where one not is likely to move away. Warm staff.

Willi's Winebar

This wine bar is a must, for the well shaped bar counter alone. Aside from this obvious virtue, it also holds an excellent selection of wines, and a tempting menu, both in the grignotage section and "real" food. The kitchen is sharp and good. The service is accommodating. Although the interior as such is neither cool or charming, the place has a vibe. And is most definitely worth a visit.

http://williswinebar.com

Coffee Parisien

Coffee Parisien is a hangout for French US addicts and others as well. With some style elements from a US burger bar, the walls are covered with Elvis and JFK posters. The menu is simple, the prices are low, but the servings are decent. However, do not expect huge burgers american style - the sizes are considerably smaller. A nice bar desk is the place to hang out or to meet people. A place where you can stay for hours or just drop by for a quick burger.

Quedubon

As you are just about to think that there is absolutely nothing in the 19th district, aside from the magic Buttes Chaumont, a funny modern bistro appears: Quedubon. And it is "just good stuff". For example like a well conceived tuna tartare. Or pickled pork. An unpretentious place with delicious and well-prepared food, served by cool and charming waiters. An impressive and well selected wine list. Good and interesting bottles. Well priced.

Inaro

This is the local place where you drop by for a glass, for a good plate of charcuterie, for a talk, a coffee, or something else. Aside from the serving the bar and the tables in fresh light wood - which for some reason seems intended to look scandinavian, rather than savoyard - Inaro also sells its terroir products to go. Interesting products, good sausages, cheeses, all the necessary basics of the cold kitchen of a stable high quality. Despite the decor, the place is cosy and easy going.

www.inaro.fr

Cafe Constant

This is a good place. Regardless of the number of tourist guides that crowd the place with backpacking tourists and the likes, the place is simply excellent for the price range. The cafe is next to Constant's more high end restaurant and bistro just a few meters away. Although the place is crowded and the tables are changing owners continuously, the room holds a good vibe. The kitchen is simple and traditional, but everything is done well. The menu holds different levels of sophistication and prices, allowing for a broad and funny crowd to mix. The clientele covers both outsiders as well as locals, providing a melting pot that seems slightly more tasty than in most 7th district restaurants. The wines offered are not many, but well selected and probably reflect the good cellars of the sister restaurants nearby. Good wines by the glass.

www.cafeconstant.com

La Maison de l'Aubrac

A beef house. As simple as that. Neither charming, nor sophisticated. With a strange decor, with the ground floor looking like a mountain cottage and the first floor more like a modern bar/restaurant. The meat is good, although the dishes as the wines are seriously overpriced. 

Philou

In the area around the canals the offer of good restaurants and places to go out is overwhelming. Philou is one of them. It promises good, well-prepared and well-served food in a lively, yet charming and endearing atmosphere. Good food, based on good ingredients. Simple, but without the restrictions of the classical kitchen. A well selected, good wine menu with a high variety - know what you're asking for. 

La Gauloise

A charming place, with is low key, understated interior. And a good address in the 15th. La Gauloise is a small pocket in time, taking you back the grandeur of the political France since de Gaulle. The place still has a good vibe, and the waiters are dressed just as immaculately as the plates they serve. A classical Parisian bistro.

Chez Prune

Chez prune is basically one of the cafes or bistros that the life around the canals is turning around. They do actually serve very decent food. Classical bistro food, with no pretensions of being more. But of course, this is not why you come here. You come here for the vibe, because you're strolling around the canals. You come here for the lively ambiance, to have fun, and go out. Rightly.

l'Obe

L'Obe is the hotel restaurant of Crillon. The place is worth a visit almost because of its very elegant, and pleasant decor, although surpassed by the neighboring hotel bar (not mentioning here, the touristy Buddha bar just a few meters down the road). The service is remarkable and the staff attentive. The kitchen serves all dishes well prepared and by the book; for example an excellent lobster bisque or some very good veal jaws. However, the place remains - unsurprisingly - heavily overpriced comparing quality, innovation and price.

www.crillon.com

Au bon coin

Another good corner of Paris! in the 17th, on the cosy Rue Lemercier, you will find this nice, warm-ambianced, and well turned classical bistrot. The kitchen might be in the less ambitious end, but the final results are certainly decent, stretching from the well prepared "the day after" burger, or more serious, classical French kitchen. The wines are good, and the place is often crowded in the late evenings or when the locals gather in the weekends.

Mood

A perfect recipe for a tourist ripoff: Big fancy restaurant in the upper end of the Champs. However, the place surprises positively. The concept is simple: Bar in the basement, and restaurant on the first floor. Nice looking waitresses and somewhat posh interior. But the food is overall ok. If the hunger is very strong, it might be a somewhat decent way out...

Laiterie Sainte Clotilde

In the very bourgois neighborhood of the 7th, restaurants are often something only for the nearby ministries during lunch hours. Laiterie Sainte Clotilde is also worth a visit in the evening. Not for its decor, but the place is nice and does very much with very little in terms of good feeling. The food is sharp and creative, well conceived and well prepared. Dishes such as chestnut salad, boeuf Saint Marcelais are delivered very well. The prices are also reasonable for the area.

Le Cafe qui Parle

On the border of Montmartre and just across from the cemetery, you'll find the cafe that talks. Usually crowded in the evenings, this place serves very well-priced and decent food. The kitchen serves classical French kitchen with some renewal, such as the interesting bababane (did I miss a "ba" here??). The people are friendly and the wines are well selected in a non-expensive price range. 

Rino

Rino is an excellent restaurant with high ambitions, placed on the outer side of the Bastille. The kitchen is somewhat mixed but with a strong reference to modern Italian. The dishes are elegantly arranged and tasty. The tables are small, but the feeling is cosy rather than crowded; a good ambiance. The open - and very small - kitchen is great to watch as the pros are showing of their skills.

http://rino-restaurant.com

Hotel Amour

The 9th actually holds a number of good restaurants and lively bars. Hotel Amour is one of them, although it's less for the food than for the name, the ambiance and the fact that the kitchen is open untill 23. One main restaurant inside and a charming garden cultivated with cheerful people and good ambiance. Food and wine is ok.

www.hotelamourparis.fr‎

Les Enfants Perdus

After a long, but soothing walk at the Canal Saint-Martin Sunday evening, this place is just there when you need it the most. With its dragging charm, it is welcoming and easy going. The bar alludes a somewhat classical scenery, where the child of the waiter/tender is dining quietly, gets picked up by his mother (the wife of the barman), after which the mistress takes over the scene. Or something like that. This parallel universe, however charming it might be, does not speed up the service. But it is something. And the food is good, very well prepared; the menu is tempting and holds its promises. The style is inventive, and seems yet firmly grounded in the classical virtues.

www.les-enfants-perdus.com

Le pas sage

First of all, hold on to your belongings when you're moving around in the sometimes hipster-slum'ish, sometimes just measly street of Rue Saint Denis, as you're staring at one of the few businesses older than serving food. This changes somewhat once you enter the small three meter something shelf of a restaurant, le pas sage. The place is locate in an old Parisian passage, not too far away from the quite different Montorgeuil, while the wording in French means something like "the wise step". The place is gifted with beautiful waitresses demonstrating the obvious limits of the outside business. The food is good, well prepared and the prices are absolutely reasonable. The deco is relaxed and their wines are unpretentious but well selected. A good juicy pork is worth a try.